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MBE Advance Access published online on September 2, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn193
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© 2008 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research Article

Analysis of two genomes from the mitochondrion-like organelle of the intestinal parasite Blastocystis: Complete sequences, gene content and genome organization

Vicente Pérez-Brocal1 and C. Graham Clark1,*

1 Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom, WC1E 7HT

* Corresponding author, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom, Phone: (44)-02079272351, Fax: (44)-02076368739. E-mail: graham.clark{at}lshtm.ac.uk

Received for publication June 18, 2008. Revision received August 14, 2008. Accepted for publication August 26, 2008.

Acquisition of mitochondria by the ancestor of all living eukaryotes represented a crucial milestone in the evolution of the eukaryotic cell. Nevertheless, a number of anaerobic unicellular eukaryotes have secondarily discarded certain mitochondrial features, leading to modified organelles such as hydrogenosomes and mitosomes via degenerative evolution. These mitochondrion-derived organelles have lost many of the typical characteristics of aerobic mitochondria, including certain metabolic pathways, morphological traits and, in most cases, the organellar genome. So far, the evolutionary pathway leading from aerobic mitochondria to anaerobic degenerate organelles has remained unclear due to the lack of examples representing intermediate stages. The human parasitic stramenopile Blastocystis is a rare example of an anaerobic eukaryote with organelles that have retained some mitochondrial characteristics, including a genome, while lacking others, such as cytochromes. Here we report the sequence and comparative analysis of the organellar genome from 2 different Blastocystis isolates as well as a comparison to other genomes from stramenopile mitochondria. Analysis of the characteristics displayed by the unique Blastocystis organelle genome gives us an insight into the initial evolutionary steps that may have led from mitochondria to hydrogenosomes and mitosomes.

Key Words: Stramenopile • mitosome • hydrogenosome • mitochondrion • Blastocystis • reductive evolution


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